220 Journal of the Department op Agriculture. 



Agronomy Division. — Experiment Station, Pie'tersburg, 

 Transvaal. 



Viticultural Division. — Headquarters, Oenological Institute, 

 Elsenburg, Mulders Ylei, Cape, under which the Government 

 Wine Farm, Groot Constantia, falls, also the Experiment 

 Station, Paarl, Cape. 



General. — In addition, the property " Prinshof," near the 

 Union Buildings, Pretoria, recently acquired, will be used by 

 certain of the divisions for experiment purposes, but chiefly by 

 the Division of Botany. 



As indicated, such experiments are being carried out both by 

 some of the divisions and at all the schools, and here also arises the 

 iiecessity for co-ordination of present work and a policy for future 

 development. As mentioned above, the present organization of the 

 Department is a result of urgency arising out of certain problems 

 and, to some extent, expediency to meet them. Thus we have a 

 Tobacco and Cotton Division dealing independently of the schools 

 with all phases of the crops indicated, carrying out its own research 

 and experiments and having experiment stations for the specific 

 purpose. It was admitted at the conference that the necessity for 

 the present arrangement was justified, and that it would continue so 

 for some time to come, but it was agreed that the policy in experi- 

 ment work would aim at building up the strength of the schools (and 

 sub-stations), so that in the course of time all such experiments would 

 as far as practicable be centred at the schools, under the guidance 

 of the principal, while the divisions would in time be concerned only 

 with administration and research. In view of the diverse conditions 

 to be dealt with by the various schools, some of these experiments 

 would be peculiar to certain schools only, but all experiments of a 

 more general nature would be co-ordinated and unnecessary over- 

 lapping avoided, it being recognized at the same time that duplication 

 or even multiplication of certain experiments was essential. 



The policy affecting the conduct of experimental work having 

 been agreed upon, the important question of the work to be done was 

 discussed. Again the special problems of atmosphere and soil have 

 to be taken into consideration. For this purpose the school centres 

 only are manifestly inadequate and our markedly varying conditions 

 call for experimentation in different parts of the country. To meet 

 this need, the conference was unanimously of opinion that the 

 establishment of a number of sub-stations was essential to good work. 

 Both before and since Union, sub-stations (some resembling the nature 

 of those proposed) have come and gone. Their vicissitudes need not 

 be entered into here ; some were not efficiently staffed, others were not 

 well situated, while a number were abandoned owing to change of 

 policy. But with the expansion of the country and the advance of 

 agricultural science, the need of efficiently staffed and controlled sub- 

 stations is insistently brought home to those charged with South 

 African agricultural enterprise, and the work they are eager to carry 

 out is at present being delayed by the lack of such facilities. 



Closely related to the experiment station is the system known as 

 " co-operative experiments." These comprise certain experiments 

 carried out by the farmer on his own farm under a plan formulated 

 by the Department to test results obtained at the station. This 



